“Shit!” Remi paced. “They called in the scourge after. We saw them stream in.”
I turned on my heel and stormed back to my shuttle, the gravel scattering under my feet. Every instinct in me screamed for me to move, to track, and to hunt her down before it was too late. She was out there, alone, and surrounded by scourge.
Alice’s enthusiastically yelled, “Bring her back, Ror’k!” were the last words I heard before my shuttle’s door slid shut.
I powered the engine and climbed high, the shuttle vibrating with the steep launch as I scanned the terrain, searching for any signs of her. But all my brain could focus on were the groups of scourge leaving the other location. Was it already too late?
A growl tore from my throat, the sound filling the shuttle’s cabin. I forced myself to breathe, to think. I scanned the abandoned city again. There! A group of scuttlers was chasing something. I urged the shuttle closer, hope surging in my chest.
The hope was dashed when I zoomed in on the screen and realized it was not Dottie but two human males. These males were not wearing NEM armbands or uniforms, and decades of training demanded I hunt down the scourge chasing them.But I didn’t have time for that, not with Dottie still out there, so I did the next best thing. I shot my shuttle’s nets at the group of scuttlers, trapping them so the two males could escape unharmed. I’d return later to clear them out.
First, I needed to find my female. I landed at the building where the NEM had left Dottie. The main group of scourge was gone, but a few still lingered in the area. They crowded around one of the storefronts and didn’t react until I was right on top of them to mow them down.
Their reaction reminded me of how the scourge reacted to our lures. Except if one of our lures had been going off, my shuttle and communication device would have warned me. Also, I’d be able to hear the faint, rhythmic pulses it gave off.
I leaned over to see what had kept their attention, afraid of what I’d find. But instead of prey, all I found was rubble. There wasn’t even the scent or residue of blood from their feast.
Relief hit me that I hadn’t found scraps of Dottie’s clothing. I was just stepping away when the morning sun slanting in from the horizon caught on something metallic in the rubble. I reached in and picked it up. It was a small device that looked similar to a human-style communicator, but much smaller, with a tiny screen and several buttons.
I pressed the tiny button with my large Xarc’n fingers. Nothing happened; it had no power. It could be just a part of the rubble, but something told me it wasn’t. I tucked it carefully into the pouch on my belt and continued looking for signs of Dottie.
I found her scent, acrid with fear and apprehension, several doors down. I followed it out away from the building. She’d left before the scourge arrived, and there were others with her. I recalled the two males I’d seen earlier. Those must be their scents.
My sense of smell wasn’t what it was in my younger years, but it was enough for me to follow them down the street where the two male trails vanished. Curious, I backtracked, piecing the scene together. They’d doubled back and continued down the other road, and the scourge followed them, giving Dottie a chance to survive.
Renewed with hope, I followed her trail for a short while. Then, certain that she was making her way back to New Franklin, I jogged back to my shuttle.
The cry of a flyer, a normal one that was out extra early, had me looking to the sky. The creature had spotted something. It cried out again, calling all the scourge in the area.
She was out there, and I was going to find her.
Chapter 13: Dottie
I pressed my hands over my face while the scourge outside clawed at the door. Being trapped in a men’s bathroom while those oversized abominations waited for the dinner bell wasn’t how I imagined my last moments.
I eyed the half-used sea breeze-scented spray bottle on the counter. Scented sprays had worked for years to keep the scourge from locating us by smell. The memory of dousing myself in horrible men’s cologne in the early days and successfully sneaking by a group of feasting buggers could never be forgotten. It was one of those things that stayed with you for life.
But I wasn’t sure how effective it was when there wasn’t an existing meal to distract them. Also, this technique wasn’t as successful anymore because the scourge had come to associate certain scents with the presence of food. One example was lemon-scented Pledge. That shit was widely available and hence, overused, and now when the creatures smelled it they thought, “Yum! Lemon-flavored humans!”
I wondered if “sea breeze” would still work.
Should I try it anyway? Or should I wait it out?
It was morning, and there was a good chance the scuttlers outside, called in by that asshole flyer, wouldn’t give up until the end of the day. And depending on how hungry they were, they might even stay longer. All I had was the bottle of water Shawn had handed me earlier.
Why the hell were there so many scourge in the area anyway? The nest at the center of town was gone. I’d seen its destruction on the big screen with my very own eyes.
Movement from the tiny window above my head had me ducking lower and trying to stay out of sight. I kept my eyes locked on the mirror, hoping to catch what it was before it caught me. But it wasn’t another scuttler like it had been the last time. What I saw had bile rising up in my throat. The beady eyes of a centicreep stared back at me.
Centicreeps were the scourge’s first Earth-based mutation. Evolved specifically for its speed, maneuverability, and deftness at hunting down its prey, it was abundantly clear where they’d stolen the genetics. Except instead of the two-inch-long house centipedes I was used to, this thing was as long as one of those double-length, articulated buses. And they were covered in sharp, toxic protrusions.
My heart thudded against my ribs, praying that it hadn’t actually seen me. That window didn’t open, and even if it did, I wasn’t sure it was big enough for me to crawl through without cutting myself up with glass. But it was certainly large enough for the sinuous invertebrate to get in.
To make matters worse, the giant centipede-like mutation had a series of sharp blades, all tipped in the scourge’s signature neurotoxin, and they’d learned to use the ones at the front of their bodies to break glass by swinging their heads like an ice pick.
I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. I was trapped. Cornered. Death was at the door. And windows. The air felt so thick that I could hardly breathe, so I held my breath, worried that one small sound could give me away.
But all that was in vain, because there was a sudden crash at the window. The centicreep knew I was here.
